The Hero Thread

[tiivohoe]

The Hero Thread

DAVID!... You’re not going to like this thread! You probably should leave now without reading another line.

This thread is for newbies, and experts, that have a problem, or question and don’t have the time, and/or the interest, to do extensive searches and research.

—Wham Bam give me the answer Mam!--… or a link to the needed file, or a link to a post with the answer, or a link to thread with the answer, or just a note that says something like “I know, or have, what your looking for and will get back to you when I have chance“ or “that’s been answered before” . (The latter should be used only when you just can’t make time to find the link or type the lengthy reply that would needed to answer the question completely, but still want to help the best you can at the time. At lease the person would know that a good search would be worth the effort). Answers like “read read read” or “do a search” is what where trying to get away form here.

When asking your question it’s always best to include a signature with the pertinent information about your “setup”. With all the different hardware and different ways to hack, it’s almost always important to know if were talking “apples or oranges.”
Don’t expect your question will be answered. Most of the people that have taken time to learn this “stuff” don’t like the idea of quick and easy answers they expect you to do the work and learn things on your own. I happen to think that’s a great idea if you’re going to make real hobby of hacking your Tivo. For many this is just one of many hobbies, a “passive” hobby if you will. For them the time it takes read and follow simple step by step instructions is all the time they have or care to invest, they just want to make the most that they can of this cool machine, in the least amount time. No one has to help them. I hope they will help each other. I hope the “gurus” will, from time to time, find it in their hearts to help as well.

NOTE: DO TAKE TIME TO AT LEAST READ THE FAQS! If you cant make time to do that, [at the very least], then you just don’t have time to hack your Tivo!! Also read and follow the rules for posting on this forum!


Good luck and happy hacking to all!!

If you can ……BE SOMEONES HERO!

[captain_video]

The whole point of telling someone to read is so they can become self-sufficient when it comes to fixing problems that tend to crop up down the road. It also helps to have some basic understanding of what you're getting yourself into when hacking a Tivo. Those that come here looking for someone to show them how to hack a Tivo without putting forth the effort will not likely be met with a warm reception. This is, after all, first and foremost, a hacking forum and not a place for the "passive" hobbiest looking for a handout. We're here to help those that want to help themselves. I'm sure you're heard the story "Teach a man how to fish and he can feed himself." That addage is exactly what we're all about.

The thing is, most newbies here jump right in and want to hack their Tivos right out of the box and a lot of them are clueless about Linux or lack even the most basic PC knowledge. These are the guys just begging to be flamed. The vast majority of the background info required to hack a Tivo has already been compiled by the members here or at other sites. It's mostly a matter of reading through the sticky threads and checking out the referenced sites in the How Tos. Admittedly, since the forums have been subdivided into specific categories, it is difficult for someone new to know where to look for basic info. Most of the How Tos and FAQs are still located in the original DirecTivo Hacking Forum, hence the directions posted in my signature.

[tiivohoe]

Captain, I understand, respect, and even mostly agree with your opinion. But really, if someone has a few bucks to spare for a hard drive and an adapter, and the good sense to pull their original drive out and set it aside, all they need is a good poke sheet and they too can enjoy the benefits of a hacked Tivo. You don’t need to be a mechanic to own a nice car and even, maybe, change your own oil and air cleaner. Isn’t there room for all levels of hobbyist here?

[BubbleLamp]

There is only so much simplification that can be done to make the process "easy". But because hacking the Tivo involves *nix commands, strange file systems, etc, etc, it will never be a push this, flip that. Even the Xtreme disk, which is about as "turn-key" as you can get cause tons of fits for some of the folks here. Furthermore, many of the hacks and processes are being refined or otherwise changed as additional knowledge comes online.

Bottom line, if a person is really in that much of a hurry, or that disinterested in learning at least a little, then they ought to hire a kid to do it for them. Or to use the car analogy, many people can change their own oil, but a lot less will/can take their distributor out, change the points to hall-effect, and replace it and still have the car run. There are a lot of people who come here who claim to be "PC knowledgeable", but in reality they barely know how to do drag and drop. DOS command line is something they don't know, and IDE cables are a mystery. Can these folks learn how to do the hacking, yes. Do they all want to learn it, no. So if they aren't willing to put in the effort, why should others have to handhold them.

Nobody is stopping anyone from creating a FAQ on any subject they want. Some exist, more would be nice. I say "write on".

[David Bought]

Originally posted by tiivohoe
You don’t need to be a mechanic to own a nice car and even, maybe, change your own oil and air cleaner.

I like your analogy. You don't need to be a mechanic to change your oil and air filter, but if a car n00b tries to install a new engine and renders the car permanently inoperable, she provides the rest of us with something to laugh at. :D For instance, I laughed so hard I was wheezing when I read about the guy who was trying to remove his Tivo hard drive while the unit was powered up and wound up shorting out the power supply.

Your goal may be noble but it sounds like you have no idea how difficult it is to empower stupid people and keep them from shooting themselves in the foot. Still I wish you the best of luck; I hope you succeed where others (http://www.hostfreedom.com) have failed.

[tiivohoe]

I guess I made it sound like this was a thread for dummies, that’s not really what I had in mind. I just wanted a place where ANYONE could go and ask a question, or for a file, and get the answer or file, easily, without getting flamed and berated if the topic has been covered elsewhere. To be told to search through a thread of 200 post (most of which contain outdated information) to find an answer, or the link to the most current file, so that they might learn, or better understand something, can get frustrating.
Of course the more you know and understand the better off you will be in the long run. But as long the information your getting isn’t ill-advised you can get by just fine with the poke sheet approach. If you have NO computer skills or are too clumsy to take out a hard drive without shorting out your power supply you probably aren’t thinking about hacking your Tivo. AND SHOULDN’T BE! But to tell someone they have to get a DOS book and “study up”, so that they know what’s happening when they drag and drop a file in Windows, is just plain nonproductive.

[captain_video]

But to tell someone they have to get a DOS book and “study up”, so that they know what’s happening when they drag and drop a file in Windows, is just plain nonproductive.

No, asking to be taken by the hand is non-productive because the user will never know what it is he's doing. We're not opposed to helping anyone having difficulties but it does require that they do their homework first. There are plently of How Tos and tutorials already available if the requestor would just take the time to look for them. I spend a lot of time pointing newbies in the right direction because it's not easy to find things in this forum if you don't know where to look.

This hobby changes on a daily basis so it is extremely difficult to keep an updated set of instructions or hacks, although many have tried to do so for the benefit of others. Everyone that comes here as a newbie will have growing pains but that's to be expected. If they can't deal with that then they shouldn't be hacking their Tivo themselves. That's why there are upgrade kits and such for those that are too lazy to take the time to learn even the most basic of Tivo hacks.

[tiivohoe]

Captain it was your link to fixsub.tcl that is stopping my Tivo from updating right now. What I envision is a thread where someone could just ask “what do I need and where do I get what I need to stop “such and such” setup from updating. Someone else replies “here’s a link to the file that worked for me, this is where you put it and this is how I run it. They could supply as much other pertinent information as they like. This does not become a “preventing updates” thread. We all move on to the next question. If something changes and the answer becomes outdated, ask it again. No need to read through 200 outdated posts or understand what every line in the script is doing. It works its easy to install and run. Why does getting it have to arduous and or belittling?
That fact that things change daily in this hobby is exactly why I think it should be ok to ask the same question over and over. The answers change almost daily. I don’t plan on doing anything else to my Tivo until something happens that makes it or one of that hacks I’m running quit working. At that time I hope I can get a quick answer as to how to fix it. I have other hobbies and a wife wanting some attention.
Enough discussion about the merits of this thread. Use it or dont use. If you dont like the concept thats ok. YOUR STILL MY HERO.

[mrblack51]

i suppose i have to flat out disagree with you tiivohoe. searching through 200 posts is not difficult (search by post rather than search by topic). the information you speak of is, in general, stickied in each of the relavent forums. also, for the threads such as tytools and mfs_ftp, the latest stuff is consistently updated to be in the first four posts of the thread, with the relavent discussion at the end.

as has already been stated in this thread, yes, its a spiffy utopian dream to have all the info in one place, where nobody needs to search. however, with a moving target like tivo hacking, thats not feasible. also, there are a million different setups that people can try to use for hacking. you might think those 200 post threads are bad, until you run into one of the quirks, and then those threads will be exactly what you need.

honestly, it sounds like you really just don't like the message board format. a generic website with basic info is essentially what you are talking about. if you want to try and make one, go for it. course, try to keep it up to date, cover all units, and have meaningful troubleshooting info, and you will see the problem.

beyond that, if you start another thread for your dream, don't start it with rants, flames, or other comments regarding your personal issues with other board members. In fact, don't sit there and ask other people to make your thread for you. If you want to compile some info, just do it...but expect to spend a lot of time reading the boards to keep your post updated and accurate.

[tiivohoe]

don't start it with rants, flames, or other comments regarding your personal issues with other board members


That was just an attempt to save the man some time he could spend elsewhere, helping others.

Maybe the idea is flawed. I’m sure if the “people in the know” don’t like it, it has no chance.
I wasn’t trying to diminish the value of anyone’s hard learned knowledge or the value of learning all you have time to learn.
Just thought it would be nice to have place to go for simple, quick answers to things that don’t take a lot of knowledge to implement once someone with more ability, and time has already figured them out.
This is the best forum around for this topic and most of answers are here somewhere. If we all have dig them out we will. There seems to be plenty of bandwidth.

I hope I didn’t offend anyone. If I did I’m sorry.

[captain_video]

Just thought it would be nice to have place to go for simple, quick answers to things that don’t take a lot of knowledge to implement once someone with more ability, and time has already figured them out.

As mrblack51 pointed out, it's not always that cut and dried to provide info for any specific hacks that will work for everybody due to the different flavors of Tivos available. The really tried and true hacks are posted in the How Tos Only and the other various stickys scattered around the forums. If you read through all of them you'll probably learn about 90% of what you need to perform any hacks on your Tivo. The rest can be found using the search button with results displayed as posts and not threads. The area where it's most difficult to find specific info is in the Extraction forum since it seems that everyone has developed their own personal method of extracting and processing ty files for burning to DVD. There have been countless attempts to consolidate this info but so far I haven't seen anyone that's been able to do it (I know because I tried).

[tiivohoe]

Alright, I’m done defending this idea. Please don’t direct any more posts on this thread to me personally. I really don’t care all that much. I won’t even be offended if the thread is killed or pulled off the board all together.
I love my Tivo. Thanks to everyone that helped me get it hacked.